Internet Adverts Are Officially Bamboozling us Out of Money

The UK's Citizens Advice organisation has come out with an attack on the advertising methods of our ISPs, claiming the wording of broadband ads makes it practically impossible for the common man to accurately compare differing deals.

The charity says that 56 per cent of the population wouldn't be able to work out which option was the cheapest from the information given out by ISP ads, as a multitude of discounts, free initial months, the exclusion of line rental from costs and variable limits make sorting them by price order a nightmare for people just after a good deal.

This could lead to some losing out on a maximum of £197 over the lifetime of a poorly chosen contract, says Citizens Advice, which quoted the example of one advert where only only 1 in 5 adults were able to calculate the actual average monthly cost of the deal in practise.

Gillian Guy of CA said: "Attractive headline offers that don’t include line rental costs make it impossible for people to work out the best broadband deal on offer without doing complicated sums. This stands in the way of people being able to make an informed decision about what internet package is best for them. A broadband market that works for consumers should be competing on the overall cost of the available deals rather than on how difficult they can make it for people to work this out." [Citizen's Advice via BBC]